


We're Still Here

by Anonymous



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, I read a wolf amongst lions a year ago there is is canon divergence within canon divergence, I thought Arya was like 19 at this point, Love Confessions, Not Beta Read, based on a wolf amongst lions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:27:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26715187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Tywin doesn't let Arya leave with him and she is forced to stay at The Rock to act as its Lady.Both her and Jaime are hurting and unable to seek comfort in each other like before.Jaime tries to change that.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Arya Stark
Comments: 8
Kudos: 47
Collections: Anonymous





	We're Still Here

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kallypso](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kallypso/gifts).
  * Inspired by [A Wolf Amongst Lions](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15494880) by [Kallypso](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kallypso/pseuds/Kallypso). 



Arya pulled the soft blankets of her way to large bed tighter around her, hoping it would wisp away the cold settled in her bones. To no avail, unfortunately, because the chill remained, not only that it seemed to settle deeper and become more evident the more she tried to banish it. 

She knew it wasn't the temperature that made her shiver, Arya was from the North, a wolf, used to summer snows and inhumane winters. Still, Arya Stark wouldn't admit to anyone the reason she was chilled and restless was Jaime Lannister. 

Although they had been married for some time now, they had never been truly intimate. They had however shared a room. She had become so used to someone lying beside her, their warmth, the way they breathed while sleeping and overall presence. Arya hadn't thought about how different it would be now she was alone again. She had been alone as a child in Winterfell, in Kings landing both before and after the war and then in Winterfell again, but as a prisoner. 

She was trying to conjure up the sounds of occasionally rustling sheets and the slow breathing of a sleeping person, hoping that it would help her find peace. Jaime had given her a sense of protection by just being there, now he was gone she felt much more vulnerable. Arya opened her eyes and wistfully eyed the undisturbed blankets on the other side of the bed. She reached, slowly with outstretched fingers to the other side almost as if she would feel a solid body on the end of her fingertips if she wished hard enough. But she didn't, of course, and limply let her arm drop. She had never reached for him before. 

Arya aggressively turned around; she could feel her cheeks burning out of shame. Was she going to ache for the man who crippled her brother? No, she didn't yearn for Jaime, she lied to herself, she yearned for a comforting presence. Something Arya desperately needed right now. Tommen and Myrcella were dead, and Tywin Lannister left her at Casterly Rock so she could step in as the lady she one day had to become. Kings Landing had been and is a dangerous place, but Arya had become familiar with it. The hours after Tommen and Myrcella's deaths Arya and Jaime were able to seek security with each other, but Cersei had told her what he should have a long time ago. Now she was all alone in a strange place, guilt and grief heavy on her heart and soul. 

She had almost told Jaime that she was the one responsible for Joffrey's death as if it would have hurt him. He also must have hated that evil little bastard; it wouldn't even have been the same as when she found out what he did to Bran. He didn't deserve the truth, because he had deemed her not worthy of it either. 

They hadn't talked to each other since she found out, Jaime had tried a few times though. Right after the funeral and after his father left. Arya hadn't even acknowledged his presence and had just walked away, but she knew she had to face him eventually, they were rulers of the Rock while Tywin was busy doing gods-know-what in Kings Landing. 

Arya tossed and turned a little more, wishing for Sansa, Jon or her mother. Someone who could hold her, someone who didn't push her brother from a tower. Deep down she still wished for him, wished she never had known what he did, or that she had known it sooner, wished he had never even done it. Arya wished that he was thinking of her too. 

Jaime hadn't been able to get a good night sleep since Arya pulled him from his sleep in the middle of the night. She had been screaming at first, but it had rapidly turned soft, her voice hoarse and silent tears rolling down her cheeks. He had wanted to reach for her, to hold her and tell her how sorry he was, how ashamed. But even with a broken voice and a tear-stained face, her anger vibrated of her, hot and unyielding. He feared that she might have burned him had he tried to touch her. 

As soon as she had appeared before him Arya had left, closing the door with a loud bang that plausibly had alerted the guards. Jaime sunk away on the floor beside his bed, resting his back against the frame and with his face in his hands. Jaime had wept silently, for his children and for his wife and all the pain he had caused her. He didn't weep for himself; he deserved that shredding sensation in his chest and all the consequences of his actions. He wasn't worthy of pity, not even his own. 

He was a fool for thinking Arya wouldn't have gone to visit Cersei, and he was a fool for not anticipating on the fact that even on her death bed she was spiteful. Cersei had told Arya what hadn't been hers to tell, and even though almost the same grievous effects would have followed if Jaime had told Arya himself the shock would have been lighter. Arya now also thought he had wished to take this secret to the grave with him, that it would have died with Cersei; that Jaime had always planned on keeping her away from the truth. But how could he have told the woman he loved how he had made an attempted their brother's life? Even if he saved his own because of it. 

The woman they love. Gods, how stupid he was that he only now realized it. And now everything was ruined. He had only kissed her once, before her first battle, when he was scared he would lose her forever. She had looked beautiful then, clad in armour, Needle and Winters Fury on her hip, ready for battle. He wasn't strong enough to hold back, so he kissed her, and she kissed him back. It was short, but it had stilled the deep aching in his chest. He could count their kiss in the sept, before the eyes of gods and men, but he didn't, because he knew it hadn't been a true kiss. O, how Jaime wished he could go back to that moment and do it all over again. 

But here the Golden Lion of Lannister lay, alone and broken because of his own stupidity. He couldn't stop thinking about Arya and with all his selfishness he hoped she was thinking about him too. 

The sun had barely risen when the lord of Casterly Rock was knocking on his wife's door, hoping she would come to meet him. Jaime had tried to talk to her before, but those had been fruitless attempts. Arya Stark was deadest on ignoring him, and by all means, she had the right. Jaime wanted one moment with her, one chance to tell her how much he cared for her. After that, she could go on and ignore him for the rest of his life.

'Who's there?' Arya's voice sounded clear; she must be awake for some time. Jaime's voice had left him, his heart started racing, she would turn him away again and he would spend another night haunted by her teary face. After a few deep breaths, he was able to produce sound again. 

'It's me.' Was the only thing he said. 

Arya recognized his voice immediately and contemplated if she was ready to face him again. If she let him in right now their talk would be much less wild and chaotic than a few nights ago, but only because she wouldn't allow herself to cry in front of him again. She wouldn't scream she wouldn't curse; Arya would become a mask of calmness. Let him wonder, let him hurt, she thought. 

It was silent, Jaime clamped his hand around the door handle, praying to gods he didn't believe in that she would say something, anything.

'Come in Ser Jaime.' Arya's voice was different, and it went through him like the icy winds of the North. Jaime opened the door and entered, after he closed it, he hesitated to move forward. Arya was seated beside a small table with the remains of her breakfast, already fully clothed in her dark blue tunic and leather riding trousers. Her chair turned to the big windows facing Lannisport and The Sunset Sea, Arya didn't turn to meet him. She sat unmoving in her chair like a statue. 

He walked across the room and seated himself on the other side of the table. He carefully studied her side profile; her grey eyes were set on the window view, but Jaime had the feeling she wasn't really seeing anything of the display before her rather only keeping herself from looking at him. Her right leg was lazily thrown over the other while her hands rested upon them. Arya’s face could have been the mask of death, it was cold, unmoving and indifferent. Jaime noticed her tightened jaw and her hunched shoulders, she was uneasy.  
He turned back to the window, and let the silence drag, hoping it would calm both their spirits, or at least his.

‘Arya-,’ Jaime started but she cut him off immediately.

‘I trusted you, I thought that maybe you weren’t as bad as my father always told me. Kingslayer, oath breaker, a man without honour, they all seem to…fall in to place now; or maybe I didn't want to regard it before, and everything has been in their rightful place all along.’ She didn’t move a muscle, her voice cold. Jaime couldn’t pretend it hadn’t hurt him. The last years he had learned, he had grown, he had protected, he had loved and now, finally, he had lost. 

'Your brother saw what should've been left unseen, I had a choice, Arya, let him go and watch my whole family be slaughtered or kill him. He didn't die, he lived, and I know I ripped his future from him, but I can't change that now.' Jaime's voice was sharp, almost angry, he tried to hold back, he knew she was hurting. But so was he. ‘But it doesn’t really matter now, does it Stark? Everyone I tried to protect is dead and buried. Tommen, Myrcella, Joffrey and Cersei, all of them gone.’

‘But you are still here, breathing and well.’ 

'Yes, I am still here, and what a joyous time I am having, my children died, my sister died and my wife despises me.' Jaime sounded sad; his voice wouldn't have been audible had Arya been seated further away. 

‘Your wife wouldn’t have hated you as much if you had owned up your little disgusting secret. No, she had to hear it from Cersei.’ Arya tried to keep her voice as even as possible but the extra sharp expressions she put on certain words were unmistakable. 

‘You would do everything for your family, I have seen what you’re capable of Arya Stark, I have witnessed, and I understood. If there stood one child, one small innocent child in the way of your family's safety, you would have done it too.' Seven Hells, Jaime almost forgot he was here to apologize, not to fight all over again. 

‘This isn’t about what I would have done, it’s about what you, you Ser Jaime Lannister, did. You tried to murder my brother and you didn't tell me because you knew this would happen. Every day that has passed, every day you didn't tell me what you did was a day I would hate you more.’ She turned to him, in one fluid sharp motion, like the wolf from her sigil. Her grey eyes blazed, burned into his soul and judged him, like her father's eyes had done years ago. But this was worse because this wasn’t Ned Stark, this was Arya. Arya who forced him to pick up his sword again and who had held and comforted him when the dried blood of Myrcella and Tommen was still on her hands. 

Jaime stood up and kneeled before her and softly placed his (only) hand on her clasped hands. She didn’t pull away, but she didn’t acknowledge his touch either. She started at him with a soft scowl on her face. 

‘I know you can’t forgive me now Arya, maybe you will one day, not tomorrow maybe not even in years, or never. But I want you to know that,’ Jaime took a shuddering breath and held her hands tighter afraid she would disappear if he didn’t hold her close enough. ‘I love you; I will wait for you and I will be beside you as long as you want me to be.’ 

In the end, it didn’t matter if Jaime held her close enough or not, because Arya ripped her hands away so fast, he almost lost his balance. 

‘Get out. Now.’ Arya snarled and if Jaime had thought he had seen fire when he served the Mad King he was mistaken. Arya’s eyes blazed ten times hotter than he had ever seen Aerys Targaryen wildfire burn. The green fire that had swallowed so many, including her uncle and grandfather couldn’t match the hate that burned in her cold grey eyes. It was hate, Jaime knew, hate had followed him everywhere since he had slain a king. But all the hate of all the people that had cursed him behind his back had told their children about the Kingslayer couldn’t match the hate that Arya Stark felt for him right now. 

His feet carried him to the door, he felt like he wasn't even in control of his own body anymore, had Jaime ever truly been in control? Before he closed the door behind him, he granted himself one look over his shoulder, to the woman he had left battered and bleeding, the woman he hadn't been able to protect from pain. 

Arya Stark hated Jaime Lannister, she hated how everything he said was true. No gods could stand between her and her family’s survival. No gods could protect them, and no god had succeeded. Joffrey is different, Arya told herself sternly. Joffrey was cruel and wicked, and he had deserved much more pain than she had inflicted on him.

Arya Stark hated Jaime Lannister because, even after everything he had done, she loved him. How could she not? After everything they had been through together, they had saved each other's life's countless times and had trusted each other countless times again.

Arya Stark was left alone, her sobs racking her body. She had always wondered how it would have felt to be loved. Sansa was always the one who was loved, the one who was sweet, charming and gentle. Arya had craved the kind of love people gave her. But now it was here, naked at her feet, she couldn't stop crying.


End file.
